Ramps
Making stairs or ramps in utherverse can be a complicated process. As you need to line up collidable objects correctly. Therefor this guide will attempt to explain this as easy as possible. Types There are a variety of ramps, that are possible to create. You can make stairs, ramps, ladders, curved paths. All these vary in difficulty. In general this article descibes the techniques to make a simply ramp. To make any of the other types see https://utheverse.wikia.com/wiki/Stairs?action=edit#their specific sections, below. Floors There will be a couple of questions you will need to ask yourself when you are creating ramps. The first and for most will be, the floor. There are 2 types of floors that you could use. The first is the property template itself. These are uneditable floors, that are unmovable. They can however be edited with the World Texture Editor. The other type of floor is one that is user created. This can basically be any prop set to collidable in the prop editor. In general there are a few preferred props for this, though in essense any prop could serve this purpose. The most common and preferred ones are: * Flat PLane, for really small landings (usually not used, unless making very detailed stairs, such as spiral staircases) * Plane_01, for medium to larger areas, but smaller then a 25% of a watersurface_02. * Surface Water_02, for larger areas. Why are these above props vastly better then any of the other props? When scaling them they do not deform as much, and the collidable areas are offset only by a small margin. Now an important factor for scaling is that any of the above props, will work best with a certain scaling range. For all of them the following is always true on the scaling tab: X and Z can be scaled from 0,25 to 1,5. However Y in general is set to 1, this pertains to the height an avatar is offset to the prop. In simply terms where the avatar will not sink under. Note that avatars all have a specific height of 591 points from where their feet touch the ground. That said, depending on the angle of the ramp the Y value might need changing to a lower or higher number untill it looks correct where the avatar will touch the visual floor. Ramps For ramps the best prop to use, is again up to whatever prop you desire. However the most easy and workable ramp prop is in general the Plane_01, the same Plane_01 as is used as a floor. This is due to the scaling of this prop. The rest of this section assumes that you are using a Plane_01 as ramp prop, other props might vary in settings. Angle The first thing to discuss is the angle in general the best angle is 26.4° on either X or Z. This angel works best when using a primative staircase set to default. Ofcourse the moment you start scaling the primitive staircase, the angle of the ramp will also change accordingly. A noteworthy fact is that between 20° and 40° the Y value does not need to be changed from 1. If you decide to venture beyond these degrees you will need to change the Y value in order to make it look like the avatar is walking on the visable floor. Scale For most Plane_01 ramps, either the X or Z axis should be modified to 0.5 in scale for the width of the ramp or stairs. Ofcourse if you want wider ramps or stairs, this needs to be larger. The lenght of the ramp set to 1 on X or Z axis can in general be considered the height and lenght needed to ascend 1 floor of a house. Which axis you pick for width or lenght is not important this is your own choice. Landings Landings is a pretty s imply topic, these are the exact same props as used for floors. Since they would simply be the floor for the next level and so on. As to which one to pick is simple the area you need to be walkable the same principle applies, as to floors. surface water_02 for large areas, plane_01 for the in between, and Flat PLane for the really small areas. lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum lorum ipsum Connecting floors, ramps and landings Step1: Connecting the bottom floor and ramp. Putting it all together, for the static floors (not user created), simply put a ramp of your chosen angle to the floor. You have a margin of 200 points where this ramp can float above the floor. As utherverse automatically will put any avatar upon this ramp. A user created floor however needs to be more exact. Therefor in both cases it is recommended to put the collidable red lines at the bottom where the ramp will start, underneath the floor. As seen in the image on the left. Sinking in this prop to the floor below these lines is not going to cause an issue. You can lower it as much as you like, though be carefull with anything build underneath, as one might run into this collidable and get stuck or unable to move. Recommended is always to make the ramp as close as possible to the size it needs to be. Tip: '''To make collidable lines visable and make them stay visable while manipulating another prop, one has to do the following: Rightclick the prop one wants to show the lines of, then hover your mouse cursor over the "properties" setting of the intended prop in question. Now without clicking this setting, move your mouse out of this menu to the right, then click anywhere outside of the menu. The collidable (red lines) will now stay visable. Note, that if for some reason this is not working, close and reopen the prop editor. Step 2: The choice of ramp. The angle and distance of the ramp is something you need to decide yourself. Recommended is to never make the Plane_01 larger then scale of 2. If you really need larger ramps, surface water_02 is recommended. Depending on your build style you can either build the ramp first and the aesthetics later, or visa versa. Some decorators find it more easy to visualise where the ramp will be, other find it more easy to see the actual ramp that will be inplace later on. In case of this guide we set the angle to 26.4° on either axis. Step 3: Connecting the upper floor (landing) with the ramp. Probably the most important step as this in general completes the ramp and in considered the most difficult part by most. First is putting the landing in. If you have a aesthetic landing in place, you simply have to raise the landing collidable floor up to it's level and line it up with the edge. In this scenario you will be lining the ramp up with the landing. In the othercase if you have put the ramp at the right spot, then in general it is better to be moving the collidable landing to line up with the ramp. Both are viable options. '''Tip: '''When doing step 3 it is aviced to have flying enabled. This will make it easier to test if you have the collidable walls lined up correct and if you are stuck you can simply fly out of it again. It also makes it easier to fly right up to the collidable (red) lined to see how close they are with eachother. Measurement Tool Now you either have a choice to do this with or without a measurement tool. As this guide is written with new decorators in mind we will use this tool. Once you get more comfortable and more used to this you can simply use the wall as a guide or even none at all. There are a variety of other options to do this, but this is deemed the most straight forward and simplified method. '''Please do not hotlink this tool, rather grab the file and host it at your own hosting site! Create a wall prop and put the tool on it. Now put this wall perpendicular to the ramp you have made. In general it is recommended to set the wall position to the level of the landing floor, but leave the wall set to default scaling. Now make the collidable lines visable and select the ramp or landing that you going to move in position. Now simply start moving the prop untill the lines intersect at the center point where the wall meets prop you are lining it up to. tool_in_use_1.png|Before adjusting height of the the props. tool_in_use_2.png|Height lined up, but still offset a bit in the X or Z direction tool_in_use_3.png|Lined up correctly, and only 1 line is visable from all directions you look at it. Aesthetics Special Stairs Spiral or curved Long distance ramps Ladders